


Grave Failings

by crimmus



Category: Darkest Dungeon (Video Game)
Genre: Self-Harm, also i wrote it at, but there may be mistakes rip, i tried to review it and make sure, it was all ok, its not a lot but fair warning, its the flagellant so there is That, like three in the morning, my characters died and i was sad, so I wrote this, so quality may vary, with voice to text chat on my phone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 08:52:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16807426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimmus/pseuds/crimmus
Summary: (I might add a summary later. it's not long so if you want a story where a flagellant who had been a lil more open to his party is dealing with some loss you can give it a read!It's with my own characters in darkest dungeon for the most part. I think there /are/ canon names for them, but the event happened with my characters and I was sad about my characters so :vMorningstar is my vestal, Folly is my jester, Dismas is Dismas, and Lorcelas is my flagellant.if you choose to read it I hope you enjoy :D)





	Grave Failings

**Author's Note:**

> asterisks are italics. I'm a fool and don't know how to italicize in aoe3

The stars shone through an uncharacteristic break in the clouds, a pale light filtering from them and granting just enough illumination to silhouette the rest of the hamlet in the distance.

Lorcelas walked slowly in the night, head uncovered by bloody cloth. He could not comprehend this sick, festering sadness in his gut. It twisted his insides as they had not been twisted in many years, and his flogging would not grant him the reprieve he so sorely needed.

No, this was a pain that could not be stolen by the cold bite of a flail, and neither was it so kind as the stinging pain gifted by steel.  
This pain was a type he had hoped to never to feel again; a flavor which, by his own design, had been banished from his life.  
And yet here it crawled again, worming its way into his heart burning him as a witch a stake.

What he hoped to find at their graves, he could not say. Perhaps it was solace; a reprieve from this hell he had hoped to escape. For no amount of blood, shed from his skin like holy tears, could ease this newest trial.  
The crisp, cold ground crunched softly beneath his feet. The Graveyard seemed strange and empty now that the burying was finished, as quiet and cold as death.

The graves were fresh, dirt loose and slightly frozen.

They'd had nothing to bury, nothing to keep from them; they had fled from the hag so quickly, leaving Folly- *leaving Folly to her. Abandoning them.*  
The sickness in him twisted like a blade in his gut, Folly's death had been his doing, and his bloody penance offered no release.

He stepped slowly towards the first grave. They had been lucky; in spite of these perils, in spite of the horrors they faced, these allies had been the first of their casualties.  
*Nearly a year in this hell, nearly a year with these people- finally as all others before them they fall by my failures.*

He found himself on his knees before Dismas' grave. The highwayman had been in this hamlet long before Lorcelas, and a part of him had believed he would be there after Lorcelas.

When he had come to the hamlet, he had been seeking atonement through his own blood and death. A way to make peace with his own shortcomings.  
He had meant to die here, purging the sin from his body before falling among the masses of foul creatures that smelled of death and sought it as a surely as a sinful man sought drink to drown his failures.

But he had found something here; something he had dreaded to find. He had feared it, and found it to be true.  
They had been kind.

People- *humans-* had been kind. Not always and not without faults, but often enough one would make a gesture so *warm*.

He had tried to distance himself from it, but as he sat at Dismas' grave he finally knew the extent of which he had failed.

When he had decided to visit their graves, Lorcelas had been unsure- he had not known if he would feel anything. He had hoped he would not.  
His hope had been in vain.  
Everything about this situation felt so distant, stirring memories he had long since left behind. But it would do no good for him to dwell on them, so instead he stood again, leaving a small tome on Dismas' frozen grave. A tool he had favored near the start of their journeys, but had grown past as they traveled ever deeper into the heart of this foul land.

At Folly's grave he could not kneel, for fear that he would not stand again. The man had acted so boyishly, though Lorcelas felt it had more like than not been a veil to cover that which he had not wanted to speak of. His humor had been morbid in the way that only those who had tasted death firsthand had known. Lorcelas had liked that about him; his were not the jokes of children or happy men, but the scrapings of laughter scavenged in hell.  
And yet it had been very rare that his jokes had fallen poorly enough to demoralize them. While he was not consistently powerful in battle, his songs and jibes had kept their party together as glue.  
Lorcelas closed his eyes, taking steadying breaths. He clenched his fists, nails biting into his palms and drawing just a little blood.  
His breaths grew uneven, ragged and choked. His chest hurt, and he knew he should not have thought so deeply- should have stayed in the church. There was nothing to be gained from this, best to let them go.  
*I am, what else am I doing if not that? There is nothing else* to *be done.*  
Suddenly he was shaking, he could not feel the cold nor the breath in his lungs; his older scars ached and the new ones burned, but it was not enough. Heavy wracking sobs shook through him, and he could not find it in him to be glad for anything.  
He felt shamed, he had failed his allies first and himself second, and he had the audacity to cry about it? What gave him the right? *He* had been the one to fail, *he* had been the one to let them die, and yet here he stood, feeling sorry for himself. Pitiful.

But his cruel barbed thoughts did not still his shaking body, and his subdued cries grew heavier.  
He stood above the empty grave even still, stars casting their gentle light upon him. A sliver of compassion wormed its way into him, and for a shining moment he allowed himself to feel that emotion which he had been so afraid of- he was not angry, was not bitter nor afraid nor even righteous.  
He allowed himself that human emotion; he allowed himself sadness.

Then the light above him died, and the world became dark again.

**Author's Note:**

> you may notice that I had more about Folly than Dismas; this is personal bias, I love Dismas but jester characters are my favorite always. many apologies if you wanted more on dismas- I wrote this for myself primarily ^^;


End file.
